Schmitz Cargobull Case Study

Schmitz Cargobull works with direct selling. This method involves direct customer contact (Direct Selling Association). Thus, SCB employs more than 250 sales representatives. These sales representatives get support from the headquarter. The department Sales Support includes the back office for the sales representatives as well as sales systems, customer data management, pricing and infomanagement. The Schmitz Cargobull Academy also belongs to this department.

The SCB Academy was established in 2009 for continuous improvement of competences of the sales representatives. In general, the sales managers are responsible for the development and further training of their sales representatives. The SCB Academy can be seen as a service provider for

The differences between these two profiles indicate where the sales representative needs to improve. The training needs resulting out of this evaluation will be fulfilled in the qualification part with various E-Learnings and face-to-face trainings. Thus the qualification pillar consists of the needs-based trainings but also of mandatory trainings ordered by the board or the CSO. The third pillar, V-Info, stand for location- and time-independent availability of actual information. Contents consist mainly of product information as well as sales notes. Product information are detailed descriptions of specific component parts. Sales notes contain time sensitive information that have direct influence on the sale, for example changes in contractual terms and price changes. Additionally, image films and brochures are shared via this

During the last years, the SCB Academy achieved various successes additional to training the sales force. The introduction of an online platform, where all further training activities are located, is one important aspect. Second, the improvement of training methods, more interactive trainings instead of PowerPoint presentations, can be seen as another success. Third, the SCB Academy trains internal employees in being a trainer.

The SCB Academy also has to face several new challenges. Having concentrated mostly on Germany and Western Europe in its beginning years, the SCB Academy now is an international service provider to all sales managers. Now there is a language barrier for some of them because not all can speak German or English. Nonetheless, the SCB Academy needs to ensure that training contents are understood. Second, it is requested by the board to reduce the expenditure of time for training organisation and to keep the costs at a minimum. On the other hand, the number of training participants rose from 294 in the fiscal year 2008/2009 to 2576 in the fiscal year 2015/2016 (Schmitz Cargobull Academy, 2007-2016). Also the team members of the SCB Academy increased in 2015. Having only three employees working in the SCB Academy in January 2015 it increased to six employees in August 2015. Still, old processes